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“Turn back!” was all she snapped out as she passed in a red dress that caught sunrays through mist. I saw her lurch upwind, kick off spiked heels, climb out to the edge of a knife-sharp rockpile, and, arms outstretched, lead the sea’s tympani, lure the din, guiding the steamy waves to shore.Will the Almighty answer me? she sang out to the ocean’s rising octaves, as blown palms pointed scarflike fronds to land. Earlier that Sunday, she had prayed to a black Christ in a church on the island, droned verses for a safe calm, and trekked homeward to board white louvered windows for the storm. She had refused the chapel’s sanctuary to ask the ocean why the wind ripped homes and would again. Her anger captured me, and stayed when I saw rain gleam on red ginger, drench trumpets islanders call yellow-bells, and soak ixora. Bonelike bits of shells and conchs lay on the beach as on an altar. Silent, I watched her. Under a blank sky, where waves broke over coral, in thick haze, pitched forward to hear the whirlwind’s reply, she shook a fist, then opened hands in praise.

Atop his exhausted buggy with its rusted wheels and now-stuck key, one boot missing, a faded jersey, the bill of his cap cracked off, he sits behind a nicked brown horse that once flicked its tail, clattered around planked floor or rug when the buggy was wound after school by children who've since fallen behind him, white-haired or gone, as he still waves the flopping spring of his crop, still stares through dimming goggles, gathering gray ribbons of dust in his silent, frozen race down an ever-unfurling track, hunched to win, leaving far back all claps and laughter, his once-smooth face scarred and pitted, just the white fleck of a smile now, more a sneer, his empty fists on the reins of air still holding tight.

An Etching A meadow brown; across the yonder edge A zigzag fence is ambling; here a wedge Of underbush has cleft its course in twain, Till where beyond it staggers up again; The long, grey rails stretch in a broken line Their ragged length of rough, split forest pine, And in their zigzag tottering have reeled In drunken efforts to enclose the field, Which carries on its breast, September born, A patch of rustling, yellow, Indian corn. Beyond its shrivelled tassels, perched upon The topmost rail, sits Joe, the settler’s son, A little semi-savage boy of nine. Now dozing in the warmth of Nature’s wine, His face the sun has tampered with, and wrought, By heated kisses, mischief, and has brought Some vagrant freckles, while from here and there A few wild locks of vagabond brown hair Escape the old straw hat the sun looks through, And blinks to meet his Irish eyes of blue. Barefooted, innocent of coat or vest, His grey checked shirt unbuttoned at his chest, Both hardy hands within their usual nest— His breeches pockets — so, he waits to rest His little fingers, somewhat tired and worn, That all day long were husking Indian corn. His drowsy lids snap at some trivial sound, With lazy yawns he slips towards the ground, Then with an idle whistle lifts his load And shambles home along the country road That stretches on fringed out with stumps and weeds, And finally unto the backwoods leads, Where forests wait with giant trunk and bough The axe of pioneer, the settler’s plough.

I never really knew if Johanna Hirshhorn was actually Joe’s only daughter. Jim Brodey made the match and claimed as much, and then he left. It was my last weekend in Labor Day New York before boarding a one-way Milan Alitalia flight where I disembarked with less than 10 bucks to my name and this sense of wonder what would unfold and take me far. It was a blinding day, September, almost still, when Flavio Lucchini came to fetch me. It would be Giangiacomo, Montale, the irascible Nanda, Ettore Sottsass when he was still taking pictures, when he hugged me when he could. In Olga Hirshhorn’s obit in the Times, no mention of Johanna. Where art thou?Dove? Dove? Perhaps she wasn’t Joe’s daughter after all. Perhaps I’d been mistaken, misheard, misremembered. Perhaps she was a long-lost grandchild dangling on that family tree. Perhaps Jim misled me. Perhaps, perhaps my memory is faulty after all, as when I woke to the abrupt jolting of the Rome Express. All else is but a blur, a flight from memory, a future without one, far from home.

somebody coming in blackness like a star and the world be a great bush on his head and his eyes be fire in the city and his mouth be true as time he be calling the people brother even in the prison even in the jail i’m just only a baptist preacher somebody bigger than me coming in blackness like a star

The neck of the flask pitch black-getting bored jacked also madness, insidious intended ghost (days late) I cross green & white flowered seas Valentines, May Day conferring with henchman one must keep holy the edges of fragments slots used clothes loose dried bloodspots bolster elegance Found a goldmine outside a mansion a prolongation of the art of very rich hours oil in childe ballads sung, unsung against I should say “over” though, The Cosmos slows it for us The heretofore unmentioned 26th Series (he gets the girl) sparks fall     call me if you do die

John Anderson my jo, John, When we were first acquent, Your locks were like the raven, Your bonie brow was brent; But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snaw, but blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo! John Anderson my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither, And monie a cantie day, John, We've had wi' ane anither; Now we maun totter down, John, And hand in hand we'll go, And sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo!

Compassionate eyes had our brave John Brown, And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown; He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley, The fool who redeemed us once of our folly, And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown! Too vehement, verily, was John Brown! For waiting is statesmanlike; his the renown Of the holy rash arm, the equipper and starter Of freedmen; aye, call him fanatic and martyr: He can carry both halos, our plain John Brown. A scandalous stumbling-block was John Brown, And a jeer; but ah! soon from the terrified town, In his bleeding track made over hilltop and hollow, Wise armies and councils were eager to follow, And the children’s lips chanted our lost John Brown. Star-led for us, stumbled and groped John Brown, Star-led, in the awful morasses to drown; And the trumpet that rang for a nation’s upheaval, From the thought that was just, thro’ the deed that was evil, Was blown with the breath of this dumb John Brown! Bared heads and a pledge unto mad John Brown! Now the curse is allayed, now the dragon is down, Now we see, clear enough, looking back at the onset, Christianity’s flood-tide and Chivalry’s sunset In the old broken heart of our hanged John Brown!

When John Henry was a little tiny baby Sitting on his mama's knee, He picked up a hammer and a little piece of steel Saying, "Hammer's going to be the death of me, Lord, Lord, Hammer's going to be the death of me." John Henry was a man just six feet high, Nearly two feet and a half across his breast. He'd hammer with a nine-pound hammer all day And never get tired and want to rest, Lord, Lord, And never get tired and want to rest. John Henry went up on the mountain And he looked one eye straight up its side. The mountain was so tall and John Henry was so small, He laid down his hammer and he cried, "Lord, Lord," He laid down his hammer and he cried. John Henry said to his captain, "Captain, you go to town, Bring me back a TWELVE-pound hammer, please, And I'll beat that steam drill down, Lord, Lord, I'll beat that steam drill down." The captain said to John Henry, "I believe this mountain's sinking in." But John Henry said, "Captain, just you stand aside-- It's nothing but my hammer catching wind, Lord, Lord, It's nothing but my hammer catching wind." John Henry said to his shaker, "Shaker, boy, you better start to pray, 'Cause if my TWELVE-pound hammer miss that little piece of steel, Tomorrow'll be your burying day, Lord, Lord, Tomorrow'll be your burying day." John Henry said to his captain, "A man is nothing but a man, But before I let your steam drill beat me down, I'd die with a hammer in my hand, Lord, Lord, I'd die with a hammer in my hand." The man that invented the steam drill, He figured he was mighty high and fine, But John Henry sunk the steel down fourteen feet While the steam drill only made nine, Lord, Lord, The steam drill only made nine. John Henry hammered on the right-hand side. Steam drill kept driving on the left. John Henry beat that steam drill down. But he hammered his poor heart to death, Lord, Lord, He hammered his poor heart to death. Well, they carried John Henry down the tunnel And they laid his body in the sand. Now every woman riding on a C and O train Says, "There lies my steel-driving man, Lord, Lord, There lies my steel-driving man."

The music was already turning sad, those fresh-faced voices singing in a round the lie that time could set its needle back and play from the beginning. Had you lived to eighty, as you’d wished, who knows?—you might have broken from the circle of that past more ours than yours. Never even sure which was the truest color for your hair (it changed with each photographer), we claimed you for ourselves; called you John and named the day you left us (spun out like a reel— the last broadcast to prove you’d lived at all) an end to hope itself. It isn’t true, and worse, does you no justice if we call your death the death of anything but you. II It put you in the headlines once again: years after you’d left the band, you joined another—of those whose lives, in breaking, link all memory with their end. The studio of history can tamper with you now, as if there’d always been a single track chance traveled on, and your discordant voice had led us to the final violence. Yet like the times when I, a star-crossed fan, had catalogued your favorite foods, your views on monarchy and war, and gaily clipped your quips and daily antics from the news, I keep a loving record of your death. All the evidence is in—of what, and to what end, it’s hard to figure out, riddles you might have beat into a song. A younger face of yours, a cover shot, peered from all the newsstands as if proof of some noteworthy thing you’d newly done.